Get real path from URI? Android 9+

Question

I have the uri of my files. Now I need to get its real path to send them. (the uri is like: "content://some-path").

This is for Android 9

What library/functions are you trying to use to make a POST Multipart request, as they are likely to be able to take a `FileDescriptor` object instead of a filename, which you can get with Android 9+ — Andrew, Nov 15 '19 at 17:27
@Andrew Retrofit 2, but I need the path to be able to send the file! — maryrio7, Nov 15 '19 at 18:07

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 15 '19 at 20:48

So with Android 9+ you can only use file paths inside you applications private storage area otherwise you have to use URI's and ContentResolvers

So I see three solutions when using Retrofit2

Get a Java FileDescriptor from a contentResolver and read the file from the contentResolver, writing it to your App's private storage area. You can then get a Java File Object as normal from this copy of the file. This is similar to stackoverflow.com/a/52814247/3518278 as suggested by ViVekH
Get a Java FileDescriptor from a contentResolver and read it in to a in memory Byte array. I'm not a Retrofit2 user but I believe you can create Request Body or Multipart part from a Byte array instead of a Java File object.
Raise a feature request with RetroFit2 / OKHTTP to be able to give it a Java FileDescriptor object instead of a File Object

Note with the contentResolver you can query it to get the "Display Name" as the filename part of the Path.

1 Answers1